I have just showed two instances where your SALON article was 100% wrong.... President Clinton spoke today and said they never through. He was President for eight years, and his administration CUT the funding too. THEY never thought. (AND I AM NOT BLAMING CLINTON)

The army core of engineers said the areas that broke were not areas they were going to work on. They were FINISHED with those areas.

And if you think the republicans and democrats are not equally reponsible for the problems we are having with pork and pet projects, there is nothing I can say.

If you look at who is in charge of the State and Local governements before the storm hit...Verte I think clearly showed it was Democrats.....

The article I posted makes a shitload of sense.....

Dread: most of us are not criticizing the breaking of the levees but the total lack of evacuation plan and the sheer ineptitude of the response (which seems eerily similar to the ineptitude of Rummy's occupation of Iraq). we are pointing to Bush looking, again, like the callow child he is. we are pointing to the absence of leadership, the utter verbal fellatio the bureaucrats are performing on each other, the fact that this is NO DIFFERENT than if Al-Qaeda had bombed the levees.

this president said in the 2004 election, "vote for me and i will keep you safe; vote for Kerry and you will die."

well guess what?

we aren't prepared. it is still September 10, 2001. and the fault lies with an administration that has talked up safety and aggression and finding and beating threats before they materialize and kill Americans on the streets of their own cities.

they have failed. hugely and utterly and totally.

these people will not keep me safe, a resident of WDC, should god forbid a chemical or biological attack happen or the metro should be blown up to hell.

these people have been time and time and time again revealed to be utterly inept at the most BASIC function of government: keep your people safe.

New Orleans was never really prepared for a levy break and extensive flooding of the city.

I still think the entire fault lies with sheer human complacency. The governor, the Army Corps of Engineers, etc., tell the city these levies can withstand a cat3 hurricane and our pumping stations can move Xnumber gallons of water out of the city in however many hours, and people just "Okay." They didn't really jump up and down and demand to know what would happen if the hurricane was bigger than cat3. The didn't scream and shout and demand to know what would happen if water was flowing into the city at a time when the pumping stations were inaccessible.

People get used to shit. People can get used to all kinds of shit. You know, there are still people living in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius. Just like there were people living in a city below sea level which lay between the Gulf, the Mighty Mississippi and Lake Ponchartrain. They got used to living with barges floating by over their heads and reassured themselves that nothing bad was going to happen because it hadn't happened before.

I hope that in the aftermath, they do jump up and down, and scream and shout, and demand better protection and better disaster response planning.

Dread: most of us are not criticizing the breaking of the levees but the total lack of evacuation plan and the sheer ineptitude of the response (which seems eerily similar to the ineptitude of Rummy's occupation of Iraq). we are pointing to Bush looking, again, like the callow child he is. we are pointing to the absence of leadership, the utter verbal fellatio the bureaucrats are performing on each other, the fact that this is NO DIFFERENT than if Al-Qaeda had bombed the levees.

this president said in the 2004 election, "vote for me and i will keep you safe; vote for Kerry and you will die."

well guess what?

we aren't prepared. it is still September 10, 2001. and the fault lies with an administration that has talked up safety and aggression and finding and beating threats before they materialize and kill Americans on the streets of their own cities.

they have failed. hugely and utterly and totally.

these people will not keep me safe, a resident of WDC, should god forbid a chemical or biological attack happen or the metro should be blown up to hell.

these people have been time and time and time again revealed to be utterly inept at the most BASIC function of government: keep your people safe.

and, yes, if this had been a Gore 2 term, i'd say the same things.

Again, I have not said I disagree with criticism....I disagree with some of the politicization of the criticism....

I responded to the article you posted. I posted an article that I think points the finger to the big problems of a disaster of this magnitude.

I do not care who is in office now, there is nothing, absolutely nothing that would have changed what happened or the way it is being responded to.

We are lazy, we think it will never happen to us, and the majority of us will not even think about voting one party out or the other because we are so entrenched in this system.....sadly......we are playing with the cards we are delt.

Location: 8 years and I still can't think of anything witty to put here

Posts: 34,698

Local Time: 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dreadsox

I do not care who is in office now, there is nothing, absolutely nothing that would have changed what happened or the way it is being responded to.

Bush decided to have FEMA be part of the Homeland Security Office. That made a difference in how this is being responded to.

From the article that you posted:

Quote:

The hurricane was the first major test of FEMA since it became part of the Homeland Security Department, a massive new bureaucracy that many feared would make the well-respected FEMA another sluggish federal agency.

Those buses are just sitting there. Before the disaster struck there were LOCAL GOVERNMENTS that had a responsibility to do something. Those buses sitting there make me sick.

If I could have been there this weekend I would have gone to help with the volunteer fireman from my town that are going. But I could not.

To be fair, you did accompany the picture with a sarcastic (I assume) comment asking why senior Bush administration officials weren't driving those buses.

I don't disagree that local governments could likely have done more to help people evacuate the city before the hurricane struck. In particular, I feel that more could have been done to help the most vulnerable people (the elderly, those with young children, those without transportation of their own, those with disabilities, etc) to move to a safe location.

That may well be....was FEMA unsluggish before? I am not familiar with their response times before, nor am I familiar with any disaster on US soil that meets the scale of this. There are reasons there may be a slow response, not necessarily attributed to the reorganization of FEMA. I will say this, I am all for an evaluation of WTF went on to figure it out. Is it possible to wait until the dust settles.

I am sure everyone working at FEMA wants to help out, as I am sure everyone posting in here would give their right arm to help out. I am not sure we can determine EXACTLY where things went wrong.

I am watching as rescue workers are being shot at by the people they are coming to rescue.

What should be done? SHould the Military Police from the National Guard fire back? I read an MP got shot as a civilian attempted to take his gun from him today.

Again, I have not said I disagree with criticism....I disagree with some of the politicization of the criticism....

I responded to the article you posted. I posted an article that I think points the finger to the big problems of a disaster of this magnitude.

I do not care who is in office now, there is nothing, absolutely nothing that would have changed what happened or the way it is being responded to.

We are lazy, we think it will never happen to us, and the majority of us will not even think about voting one party out or the other because we are so entrenched in this system.....sadly......we are playing with the cards we are delt.

in general i agree, however two caveats:

1. Bush has made his presidency about the war on terror and protecting the homeland -- this goes towards natural disasters as well as terrorist attacks; clearly, he has failed, both in how his administration executes the basic functions of government (to keep the people safe) and in how he has reorganized government to reflect this new reality in a post 9-11 world; he also has not a speck of empathy in his gym-toned body and is laughably callow as a consoler/mourner-in-chief: "The good news is - and it's hard for some to see it now - that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house - there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.' (Laughter)."

(and this is particularly insensitive given Trent Lott's comments at Strom Thurmond's birthday and the now widely commented upon color of those most afflicted by the storm)

2. i bet you dollars to doughnuts that those 3,000 Louisiana and 7,000 Mississippian National Guard officers would be doing a hell of a lot more good keeping Americans safe (which was the whole point of going into Iraq, right?) if they were in New Orleans and Biloxi than in Falljah and Baghdad. a man who explodes government spending but can't run a war or organize basic civil defense is simply an incompetent buffoon. if this were a parliamentary system, we'd have a vote of no confidence. instead we have three years of more peril.

this is a failure of government. and the Bush administration. big time.